Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

All over America, kids are getting ready for baseball… Mom’s are shopping for cleats, and gloves… and clothes to keep us warm during the early practices while we freeze. I remember being absolutely miserable while my kids were seemingly unaffected by the chill in the air during those early practice nights. There are tons of lessons to be learned on the baseball diamond that our kiddos can take into their adult life, if they will just pay attention. They learn to play as a team, that the goal of the team is bigger than the goal of the person. They learn to not have a bad attitude when they don’t get the position they want, that sometimes they have to work harder or practie longer if they want the job that comes with the positions they desire. They learn that sometimes you have to strike out a few times before you get that big hit. When you look at any sport, there are many more hours put into practice than in the actual playing of the game. Many parts of practice involve the the coach working with other players while you wait your turn. Our responsibility as parents is to train our kids for life. From a christian perspective, we’re training them for eternity.

I spend a lot of time watching object lessons on the internet. My biggest goal as a Sunday School teacher is to get my kids interested in looking at the Word outside of class time. I recently saw one that stuck with me. The man walked across the stag with an unending white rope. Even as he approached the other side of the stage the end of the rope remained off-stage. He walked back to the middle and held up his end of the rope. It had about 3 inches of red at the end. He said, “this red part… is our life on earth. The white part that goes on out of sight, that’s eternity… But, what we do in this tiny portion we have on earth, will effect the entire white part.” It’s been weeks since I saw that, and I can’t get it off my mind. We have a tiny little bit of time to prepare for eternity. What are we doing with it? Once we end our life on earth, we can’t ‘do’ more for the kingdom. We’ll be there, we can’t reach anyone else for God, we can’t serve our Lord on earth after we’ve gone on to glory.

Simply securing our own salvation… is not our only goal on this earth. We have more to do than just making our calling and election sure. We are made to worship Him, grow in Him and lead others to Him…. Nothing about our creation is about pleasing our carnal self… In fact, the Word tells us over and over again to die to self and to surrender our will for His. And while that may seem like a lot of sacrifice, there is truly no greater joy than walking in His will. I spent a lot of time fighting for my way, trying to get to where I wanted to be, but it wasn’t until I allowed Him abject control over that I experienced lasting happiness.

That experience, that unspeakable joy, that comes from living a life in tune with the Holy Spirit. That’s the thing I want to spend my time chasing. I’m training for eternity. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of a long practice period leading up to a short game season. We’re only allotted a short time on this earth, and everything we do matters for eternity. Let’s get in the game!